During the HAXLR8R program, the
Nomiku team learned how to turn
their sous vide DIY kit, which they
had developed with help from U.S.-based makers like Mitch Altman,
into a compact consumer product
that is more affordable than most
competing versions on the market.
China’s historical development, its
educational system, and its culture
or focus on manufacturing following
the years of economic reform. For
example, in a blog post in response
to a New York Times article by John
3. Ratto, M. A Practice-based model of access for
science: Linux kernel development and shared
digital resources. Science and Technology Studies
20, 1 (2007), 73-105.
4. See http://www.stcsm.gov.cn/jsp/xxgk/zhtz/
content.jsp?id=2267 and http://www.stcsm.gov.cn/
zwzyml/fileUpload/file/ 20111102100853.doc
Markoff and David Barboza on
5. Leadbeater, C. Living on Thin Air: The New
Economy. Viking, 1999, 18.
China’s innovation goals [15], James
6. See www.transfabric.org and www.makercarni-val.com
Nomiku not only uses open source
manufacturing in Shenzhen but in
many ways also reflects the mak-er-culture ethos. The device is the
brainchild of a couple of passionate
home cooks who gave birth to the
idea while they sat at home watching Top Chef. Nomiku was designed
to function on simple, cheap components, and rather than being
financed by a large corporation or
investor, it was sponsored through
Landay reflected on his work and
teaching experiences at Microsoft
Research Asia and Tsinghua
7. This includes but is not limited to Liu Yan,
Chen Xu, Min-Lin Hsieh, Ricky Ng-Adam, Isaac
Mao, Aaajiao, Mitch Altman, Justin Wang, Garnet
Hertz, Paul Dourish, Susan Evans, Ingrid Fischer-
University in Beijing. He argued that
Schreiber, John Philip, Briar Smith, Kate Coyer, and
Kevin Gotkin.
“the level of innovation and creativity in this cohort is much lower than
in similar cohorts in the U.S. And in
fact, the ones that are the best on
the ‘creativity’ scale almost invariably are folks who received their
8. http://blog.makezine.com/2012/04/04/maker-
spaces-in-education-and-darpa/
9. https://t witter.com/maltman23/status/186997470
180548609?category=people
10. Turner, F. From Counterculture to Cyberculture:
Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Catalogue, and the
Rise of Digital Utopianism. University of Chicago
Press, Chicago, 2006.
Kickstarter, a crowd-funding
website that has become emblematic as a DIY and maker business
model. With Kickstarter, anyone—
a geek working out of a basement,
or a passionate home cook—can
become inventor and producer by
seeking financial support from
the Kickstarter community. This
is how the Nomiku founders
described their original idea: “Our
goal is to create the best immersion circulator for home cooks so
everyone can have sous vide in
their kitchen arsenal. Eating and
sharing perfect food shouldn’t be
out of reach” [14].
Ph.D.s in the U.S./Europe or worked
in the U.S./Europe” [16]. Comments
such as Landay’s often contribute
to cultural stereotypes and extend
existing systems of power. We have
attempted to show that the hackerspace and maker culture in China
challenges dominant views that
define regions other than “the West”
as inherently lacking creativity or
the capacity to innovate. Cross-regional collaborations on DIY and
open-source development such as
11. Keane, M. Creative Industries in China: Media,
Art, Design and Entertainment. Wiley, 2012.
12. Jeffrey, L. Innovation spaces of the future:
Research notes on China’s shanzhai meeting the
makers. The Future Now Blog. Aug. 16, 2011; http://
www.iftf.org/node/3943
13. HAXLR8R stands for hardware-related accelerator, a hardware-focused incubator. It was founded
by Cyril Ebersweiler and Sean O’Sullivan through
their SOSventures fund. Operational partners in
China are Chinaaccelerator, Seeed Studio, and
Dragon Innovation. See more at http://haxlr8r.com
14. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nomiku/
nomiku-bring-sous-vide-into-your-kitchen?ref=live
15. Barboza, D. and Markoff, J. Power in numbers:
China aims for high-tech primacy. New York Times.
Dec. 5, 2011; http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/
science/china-scrambles-for-high-tech-dominance.
html?_r=4&pagewanted=all
November + December 2012
HAXLR8R projects like Nomiku
and China’s hackerspaces together
demonstrate that “created in China”
is already a reality, but it takes a
slightly different form from how
politicians, policy makers, and large
corporations envision the future of
innovation.
HAXLR8R projects provide alternative takes on what innovation
means in the first place. China’s
hackerspaces demonstrate that “
created in China” already exists and
that it has emerged from grassroots
communities committed to a maker
ethos and DIY. These spaces demonstrate that making and remaking
is as much about forming community across cultural boundaries
and engaging critically with political debates as it is about hacking
together a low-cost sous vide tool.
interactions
Concluding Thoughts
China’s technology sector is often
assumed to inherently lack innovation and creativity. Frequently
ENDNOTES:
1. http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_ALL_
Hacker_Spaces
16. http://dubfuture.blogspot.com/2011/12/china-
will-overtake-us-in.html ABOUT THE AUTHORS Silvia Lindtner is a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine and at the Cooperative Information and Systems Laboratory at Fudan University, Shanghai. Her research explores the relationship between DI Y creativity, global maker culture, and contemporary political, social, and economic transformations in China. David Li is one of the founders of the hackerspace XinCheJian. He has worked in the areas of social networks, mobile systems, and virtual worlds. He received a B.S. in computer science from the University of Southern California.
2. Coleman, G. Coding Freedom: The Ethics and
DOI: 10.1145/2377783.2377789
Aesthetics of Hacking. Princeton University Press.